A Captive at Carlsruhe and Other German Prison Camps by Joseph Lee

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Title: A Captive at Carlsruhe and Other German Prison Camps

Author: Joseph Lee

Release Date: February 15, 2016 [EBook #51222]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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A CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

BALLADS OF BATTLE

WORK-A-DAY WARRIORS

Each 3s. 6d. net.

A CORNER OF CARLSRUHE CAMP

[2]

[3]

A CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

AND OTHER GERMAN PRISON CAMPS

BY JOSEPH LEE

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

“Now you shall have no worse prison than my

chamber, nor jailer than myself”

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXX

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND
[4]

TO

ALL MY FELLOWS IN MISFORTUNE OF
MY OWN KIN AND OF THE ALLIED
COUNTRIES
WHOSE
VARIED

COMPANIONSHIP
HELPED
TO

LIGHTEN
MY
MANY
DAYS
OF

CAPTIVITY

[5]

CONTENTS

PART I

CAUDRY—LE CATEAU—CARLSRUHE

I

PAGE

The first day—The search—Letters of divorcement—A reading of the Pickwickians—Fellows in misfortune

—A sculptor—A Sappho—The bell for the dead—Sedan—The vulture
15

II

Carlsruhe camp—Crumbs from the rich man’s table—Tea with Colonel Turano—Shamrock for dinner!—

First letters and parcels—A Nazarite—Christmas at Carlsruhe—Sketching the Commandant
29

III

Funeral of a prisoner of war at Carlsruhe—First freedom for a year—In the streets—A wreath from the

Grand Duchess of Baden—The Rev. Mr. Flad—A lecture on Abyssinia—A black mood
45

IV

Entertainment in exile—The camp theatre—“Asile de Nuit”—Scene-painter, scene-shifter, poster-artist,

actor, prompter, “noises-off,” and playwright—“A Chelsea Christmas Eve”—“A Venetian Vignette”—A
nightingale “off”—“How he Lied to her Husband”—“The Rising of the Moon”—“The Homeland”
59

V

Victims of the cruiser Wolf—Suicide of a Japanese captain—“In the dark and among the ice”—A bottle

message—Clinging to office—The Debating Society—The vines and vineyards of France—“Happy in all
things—saving these bonds!”—A straining of the Entente—A “stirring time”—A voluntary fast!
80

VI

Air raids—British airmen brought down—Dust to dust—An inimitable imitator—Songs from Coimbra—A

German bombardment—March, 1918—The bath attendant—Our orderlies—Gustav—Imprisonment “for
revolt”
96

VII

Carlsruhe at its kindliest—The chestnut trees—Aspen and poplar—The new hut—“Torrents of Spring!”—

Linguistic efforts—A surprise to Mother—A dinner with the Italians—The last day in Carlsruhe
113

PART II

BEESKOW—BERLIN

VIII

The journey—“A Roman holiday”—Our new quarters—The old tower—The Kantine and the catering

—“Much reading——”—“East Lynne,” by Carlyle!—Our walks abroad—The stork tower—Birds of a
feather
131

IX

Escapes and escapades—“Achtung!”—The flight that failed—Confinement in the “Tower”—Massacre of the

innocents—“Patience” and impatience—Ragging the Commandant—“His Excellency wishes”
153

X

The Marienkirche—Organ pipes for munitions—Madame Reinl—For the dead—A Polish baptism—

Adventures afoot—“Kuchen!”—The ancient road-mender—“In since Mons!”
170

XI

The Revolution—“Bientôt la paix!”—A smuggled copy of The Times—Abdication of the Kaiser—The

passing of the Commandant—The Red Flag is flown—Latitudes and liberties—Sketching in the streets
—“Nach der Heimat!”—A soldiers’ ball—“Warum ist der Krieg?”—Murillo’s “Immaculate
Conception”
185

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XII

In Berlin during the Revolution—“Thank God, Britain has won!”—The Dom and the Galleries—The Palace

—“Für Ebert und Hasse!”—The Hindenburg statue—Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—The machine-
gun waggons come up—Caricatures of the Kaiser—Captivity de luxe!—“Are you English officers?”—
Freedom—“Es ist vollbracht!”
203

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A Corner of Carlsruhe Camp
Frontispiece

Fellows in Misfortune
15

A Reading of the Pickwickians
21

A Sculptor
23

The Unter-Offizier
25

Christmas Day at Carlsruhe
28

Arrival of the Parcel Cart
29

The Chapel at Carlsruhe
31

Col. Albert Turano
33

The Camp Commandant at Carlsruhe
38

A Game of Cards
41

Funeral of a British Prisoner of War
44

A Serbian Colonel
45

The Catholic Priest
51

The Rev. Mr. Flad
52

An Italian Major of Mountain Artillery
56

Playbill, “The Rising of the Moon”
58

Our Orchestra
59

A Carlsruhe Concert Programme
62

“A Chelsea Christmas Eve”
64

“A Venetian Vignette”
70

“How He Lied to Her Husband.” Playbill
72

“J’invite le Colonel.” Playbill
73

One of our Orchestra
79

Engineer of the “Hitachi Maru”
80

Captain of the “Tarantella”
84

A Serbian Officer Prisoner
86

A Rehearsal
88

Twice Wounded
95

Orderly Hanet, “Le Père Noël”
96

Funeral of Two British Aviators
100

Captain Teixeira
104

Orderly Toulon, Chasseur Alpini
110

The two Serbian Colonels take the Sun
112

Lt. Bertolotti
113

Lt. Caruso
116

Lt. Visco
119

Lt. Lazarri
121

Maggiore Tuzzi
125

The “Altes Amt,” Beeskow Lager
130

The Outer Walls of Beeskow Lager
131

The Prison Camp at Beeskow: An Audience with the Commandant
135

The Old Tower, Beeskow
138

Herr Solomon, the Kantine Keeper
141

“Only One Book!”
142

The Stork Tower, Beeskow
147

Prisoners All
149

The Prison Gateway
152

The Marienkirche, Beeskow
156

The Late Lieut. Robinson, V.C.
159

Caricature of the Camp Commandant
165

Narrow Alley, Beeskow
169

Service for the Dead
175

Old Inn at Beeskow, now burned down
179

“In since Mons!”
183

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Kirchestrasse, Beeskow
184

The Oldest House in Beeskow
196

Murillo’s “Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.” (Painted by a French officer, prisoner of war, on

the outer wall of the camp)
200

Captain Tim Sugrue
202

A Caricature of the Kaiser. (Bought in the streets of Berlin during the Revolution)
213

PART I

CAUDRY—LE CATEAU—CARLSRUHE

[13]

A

A

CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

Cap improvized from

an aviator’s boot.

A modern Icarus.

Chausseur à pied.

FELLOWS IN MISFORTUNE.

I

The First Day

s we limped and stumbled into Caudry in the dusk we presented a very disturbing spectacle.
Two young French women stood at a cottage door, and, when our doleful procession passed, one of them flung

herself into her sister’s arms in a paroxysm of grief.
The good folk of the town would have slipped bread into our hands, but our German guards pressed them back with
their rifles. Bayonets and rifle butts could not prevent them, however, from flinging us words of cheer and
encouragement. “Courage! Bonne chance! Bonne nuit!”
How illogical is war! This very morning, as we entered the first village in which German troops were billeted, we found
them waiting to serve us, with outset tables on which were clean glasses and pitchers of clear water! Earlier, while the
enemy attack was still developing, I observed a German—himself at the charge, and with at his elbow Death, the equal
foeman of all who fight—wave a reassuring hand to a British soldier prisoner who was showing signs of distress.
So in the dark we came to a grim factory, into which we were shepherded for the night. We had had nothing to eat all
day; we were to have nothing to eat now. There was, however, an issuing of bowls of what, for lack of a better name—
or of a worse—was designated coffee.
There was now also to be a search, and a giving up of all papers, knives, razors, or other steel instruments—bare
bodkins by which we might be disposed to seek redress, relief, or release. Search had already been made at a German
headquarters within a few miles of the line. Prior to which, as we marched down heavily flanked by our guards, I had,
with surreptitious hand thrust into my tunic pocket, succeeded in tearing up and scattering over the land, sundry military
papers, and the proof sheets of a book of mine in which were some very complimentary references to the Kaiser. Here
it was also that a wounded fellow-officer, giving up his letters, and asking me to explain that two from his wife he had
not yet read, the gnarled old German officer handed them back with a salute.
It was difficult to parade the men for search now. They raised themselves on an elbow or sat up and endeavoured to
shake the sleep from their eyes, and then dropped heavily back upon the floor again. Ultimately they were herded to
one end of the factory, from which they emerged in file, dropping as they passed their poor, precious epistolatory
possessions—letters with crosses and baby kisses—into an outstretched sack. One man approached me and asked
that he might retain papers, including a written confession, necessary to divorce proceedings against his wife. I put the
case to the German officer; he put it to his military conscience, and decided. Yes, they might be retained.
That first night I slept without dreaming; it was when I awoke that I appeared to be in a dream.
At noon next day I received the first meal of which I had partaken for the last forty-eight hours. It consisted of a mess
of beans and potatoes, which I, being then in fit state to sympathize entirely with Esau, found more than palatable. Later,
in the afternoon, when a red sword lay across the western sky, we marched to Le Cateau. Here there was a separating
of sheep from goats, the senior officers being housed somewhere with more or less of comfort, doubtless, while all
below the rank of Captain were packed into another discarded factory, whose only production for some time to come
seemed likely to be human misery.
Followed four melancholy and miserable days, whose passing was not to be measured by figures on a dial or dates

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upon a calendar, but by the clamour of appetites unappeased; by the entry of our dole of bread and our basin of skilly.
In our waking hours we discussed only food; by night we dreamed of monumental menus displayed on table-covers of
snowy whiteness. Scenting a possible profit, a German soldier insinuated into the camp and put up for auction some
half-dozen tins of sardines, to the provocation almost of a riot.
Our billets were dirty and verminous. Properly organized and harnessed there was a sufficiency of performance and
activity in the fleas to have supplied the motive power to the whole factory! We could not shave, because we had no
soap nor steel; we could not wash, because the water was frozen in the pump, and icicles hung by the wall.
If there was little to eat there was even less to read, the only literature in the whole company consisting of one
Testament and one Book of Common Prayer, and these being in continual demand.
On the fifth day there came a break in the monotony, some sixteen of us being removed to the headquarters, where had
been an examination on our arrival. As we waited for admittance a few French folk gathered around, and two girls from
a house opposite made efforts at conversation. Our guards menaced them not too seriously with their bayonets,
whereupon they scampered for their house and slammed the door. In a few minutes the door was cautiously opened
again; there was a ripple of laughter, and two mischievous faces, with a mocking grimace for the Army of Occupation,
appeared round the post.
In our new quarters eight of us occupied one room. Report had it that the walls, besides various pieces of pendent
paper, had ears, a dictaphone being supposedly secreted on the premises. That being so, the Germans are never likely
to have heard much that was good of themselves.

A READING OF THE PICKWICKIANS.

A search disclosed treasure in the shape of sundry parts of the Pickwick Papers, not certainly the famous original parts
in their green—shall we say their evergreen covers?—but sections devised for the simultaneous satisfying of a number
of readers. These parts we carefully gathered together, when it was discovered that the immortal transactions began
with the celebrated bachelor supper given by Mr. Bob Sawyer at his lodgings in Lant Street, in the Borough. Here,
indeed, was matter to cause gastronomic agitation in starving men! Yet, need we, then, go supperless to bed? Shall we
not also become Pickwickians, and, constituting ourselves members of the Club, drop in upon the party as not entirely
unwelcome guests? And so I read until “lights out” sent us perforce to bed.
Recalling that it was my birthday, and by way of a gift to myself, I succeeded in persuading the Unteroffizier to
purchase for me a sketch-book and pencils, with which I amused myself and comrades by a series of portrait studies of
more or less veracity. One of these my fellows in misfortune was a sculptor who had exhibited at the R.A., and who
now exhibited a photograph of one of his works—a statue of Sappho—which he carried in his pocket. We two
decided to hang together—unless we were shot separately—as we had heard amazing reports of ateliers to be secured
in certain Läger by humble followers of the arts graphic and plastic.
During all the days of our stay here, and precisely at four o’clock of the afternoon, a bell tolled solemnly from the
church under whose shadow we lay. It was for the burial of German soldiers killed at Cambrai.
Early on a Sunday morning, while the stars still shivered in a frosty sky, we set out to entrain for Carlsruhe, very
optimistically with one day’s rations in our pouches, and that a day’s rations which would have shown meagre as the
hors-d’œuvre of an ordinary meal. We arrived at Carlsruhe on the evening of Tuesday, and in the interim would
probably have succumbed to starvation for lack of food, if we had not been in a state of suspended animation owing to

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